As Atmos completes 10 years, Dolby sees the car as ‘perfect listening environment’

With the focus Dolby has on music, Foncillas said, it took “a while to actually launch the music product because we wanted to get it just right”. He qualified: “Dolby is a company which actually is full of musicians. Half the employees play music, so everybody wanted to make sure we got it right.” But now the company is confident, especially with the headphones and streaming services they have worked on. “As we move to automotive, we are finding exactly the same reaction.”

Dolby understands that even as it works on automotive, this new frontier comes in with many advantages too. “It’s a perfect listening environment because you know what it looks like, where the speakers are to confine tuning for that experience,” Foncillas explained, adding that it was, however “intense work” as Dolby had to work with the entire value chain.

“The biggest thing that’s stopping us now is really that the car cycles are very long. So one of the reasons why electric vehicle companies launch slightly sooner is because, in a way, they are more like electronics companies so they have fast product cycles. But the moment you get into the mainstream car companies, the product cycles are slower. So it’s taken us a little bit longer.” He added: “We find the car is almost like the future of entertainment because as cars become more sophisticated you are looking for entertainment.”

And similarly, the future of wireless speakers looks exciting too as “it’s going to be the way people are going to experience music in the house”. Foncillas explained that every new device category adds a whole new challenge. “We have to put in a lot of time. There’s a lot of new learnings too,” he said, adding how every type of content genre has specific challenges.

Left to Right: Javier Foncillas, Vice President, Commercial Partnerships, Dolby Laboratories, Ashim Mathur, Senior Regional Director, Japan, and Emerging Markets.

“When we went from film to music, we had to bring on board all the tools that musicians were using,” he explained, adding how this meant also considering the factor that a lot of music was created at home using a Mac.  Then with podcasts, Dolby had to optimise for a different set of tools, while the challenge was entirely different with live sports. “Our R&D team becomes super busy in each stage because one of the things we are also pushing them is we want to make this mainstream, we want to make it very democratic for everybody.”

Another segment that has become a big focus at Dolby is user-generated content, added Ashim Mathur, Senior Regional Director, Japan and Emerging Markets. “We have developed the content ecosystem from a pure content creators perspective whether it was the typical filmmakers or sound designers. I think the next big thing for us, especially in India, is going to be how we really take that ecosystem, create the best and noteworthy content which you capture.”

Foncillas explained that every new device category adds a whole new challenge. (Image Source: Dolby)

Dolby Vision video capture has over the years moved from the iPhone to the more mainstream Android smartphones. “Now with the Android ecosystem on board, we need to work on all the tools that make sharing work. So, social platforms like WeChat in China are now being developed. So there’s a whole new ecosystem we have to develop for prosumer creators,” Foncillas added.